


I Ne'er Saw True Beauty Till Tonight

by mosslover



Series: Darkhawk Romeo & Juliet AU [1]
Category: Poldark - All Media Types, Return to Treasure Island (TV 1996)
Genre: Blood, Brief Violence, Happy Ending, M/M, Police Chase, Romeo and Juliet verse, fated love, feuding families AU, gunshot wound, impending arranged marriage (with a third character), inspired by Baz Luhrmann movie, sometimes closely and sometimes loosely, threatened suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-04
Updated: 2016-05-13
Packaged: 2018-06-05 11:21:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6702628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mosslover/pseuds/mosslover
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From two families entrenched in hate, a love is born by chance.</p><p>Written for SpringFRE, prompt #121: "Feuding families a la Romeo and Juliet, but with a happy ending please."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Fallen Angel

**Author's Note:**

> The title of the fic is a line borrowed from the play. 
> 
> I'm afraid this whole thing is terribly romantic - consider yourselves warned ;) 
> 
> Not betaed, please forgive me any mistakes...

_In Fair ~~Verona~~..._

The sun leans low over the summer evening, over the city and county divided. 

On one side of the divide, in an open courtyard, a shadow falls over a young man’s face and over the book he is meant to be studying, over the daydream he is lost in instead. He doesn’t bother looking up; he knows the approaching person by her light step and thin figure.

“Still brooding, Ross?” Demelza pokes his calf with the tip of her toe. “Forget her already.”

He sees that the edge of her long skirt is covered in fish scales. Turquoise, shiny. His wandering mind is slow to catch up. Forget Elizabeth?

Fish scales?

He lifts his eyes after all, takes in her strange outfit.

“What are you wearing?” he frowns.

“Are you blind as well as hopeless?” she looks at him sideways, as if reassessing his IQ. “I’m a mermaid.”

“Why?”

“Because. I’m getting Elizabeth out of your head for tonight. Come on.”

She tugs at his arm, until he yields and gets up and follows, suspicious, to her car. She reaches in, thrusts a bundle of clothes and an odd assortment of accessories into his arms.

He stares at her, uncomprehending. She reads his face with ease and waves her hand impatiently. “The invitation says we need a costume.”

“What invitation.” He frowns deeper; he can always manage to frown deeper.

Her eyes are alight with sparks. “To the party I’m sneaking us into.”

He’s starting to get an idea, and he doesn’t like it. “Demelza? What party?”

She gives him a sly grin. “The Hawkinses are having a very, very lavish celebration. And we are going in.”

“That’s a very, very stupid idea,” he replies.

She shrugs. “Live a little, o’ fair knight. With these-” she fishes a pair of dark goggles out, adorned with gears and extra lenses and a dark feathers, “-no one will know you’re straight out of their enemy’s den.”

“If you say so.”

“Trust me,” she winks. “You’ll forget about your so-called love in no time.”

Not bloody likely, Ross thinks, but he puts the costume on. There is no arguing with Demelza. Even if this time, he should put his foot down on this venture: it could lead to a lot of grief if they were discovered. The Hawkinses and Poldarks have long been entrenched in the worst of rivalries; since before Ross had been born, the county had been split by the feud. And those who don’t heed the borders drawn between the two sections of town risk swift repercusions. The police department is a neutral force, and civil order is their only hope in keeping peace; they don’t take their job lightly.

Demelza, though, has never lacked the courage to play with fire.

Jilted, reckless by nature, Ross finds himself in the right mood to jump straight into the flames after her.

 

Their invitations pass the checkpoint scrutiny, and they are on enemy territory. Demelza, a mask over her face, parks her car, then leads Ross in his steampunk pilot ensemble along the tree-lined pathway that takes them to the front of the mansion. Ross’ home is no shack, but the Hawkins house is impressive as well: their naval transportation empire must be doing well indeed. The house stretches wide to both sides of the massive front door above which a balcony sits; a long line of columns carved in stone.

“Magnificent,” Demelza breathes.

Ross swallows, stops; stares at the front door. A sense of foreboding comes over him, warns him not to enter, to turn back, to not venture where he is not wanted. Lest it be too late, lest his life be changed forever.

Stay behind safe walls, a little voice inside him says.

It sounds like his childhood nanny’s incessant warnings. 

He rebels; steels himself with a deep breath and firm shoulders. The danger wakes his senses and he feels more alive than over the last whole year since this pining for Elizabeth had started. And yet his surroundings feel to him like a fairytale as well: the house is draped with lights and flower chains; strung along each wall they sway gently in the breeze. 

Something moves above the front door; a shimmer and a glimpse of silver and gold which Ross catches out of the corner of his eye.

And when he looks up, there’s an angel on the balcony, leaning on the rail above the garlands and distorted music and cacophony of voices that spills out through the open french windows. The figure seems untouchable, raised over the hubbub of the gathering; its face is turned up toward the sky like to a realm that’s forever out of reach, a place where all the answers lie, waiting to be peeled open like blossoms at dawn. 

Ross pulls the goggles up to his forehead. Even then he can’t tell the color of the angel’s eyes, but he can just make out the black and silver shimmer of eyeshadow above them. It looks as if the night sky itself was settled there.

Ross stares, mesmerized. From under the angel’s hair, where the last twists of his blond curls rest on his shoulders, black wings are protruding. And Ross understands: it’s a fallen angel on the balcony above him; a trapped, unfree creature.

Mourning.

 _Beautiful_.

Ross wants to touch the stars above the angel’s eyes.

 

Demelza drags him inside, shoving the black goggles back down over his eyes. “Don’t get us caught,” she chides.

Ross hears her through the rabid pulse in his ears. Follows her through the fairytale house.

He drinks from whatever glass she hands him. Dances madly, mixing with the folk he’s supposed to loathe; but they sweat and flip their hair and laugh just as if they were from his side of the barricade. No one is better, no one is above anyone else. Someone squeals, someone steps on his foot mid-dance; he looks up at a pretty wood-nymph in a brown dress that reveals more than it hides. She winks. Any other night, he’d be tempted.

But he can’t get the starry eyes out of the front room of his mind.

Outside; food, heaving tables. Music blares, flowing out over the grounds in endless waves. A fountain; water spraying out of the mouths of horned goats. Devils, they seem; their eyes bulging and crazed. Ross shudders and looks away. That sense of foreboding revisits him, but he pays it no heed, looks out over the park instead. 

By the blooming hedge of bougainvillea, a flash of silver star and black feather. A yellow curl falls.

The fallen angel’s eyes are pale blue.

ROss' mouth goes dry, heart pumping in an instant rush, but the angel disappears.

He follows.

 

Down into the grass, sharp trimmed hedges like cones pointing to the sky in warning, a row of them going in two directions. Ross picks right on a whim, but after twenty steps he hesitates. 

A rustle of a leafy branch to the side; he turns.

The fallen angel smiles.

“Who are you?” Ross breathes.

“Someone you shouldn’t follow,” the blond answers.

“What if I want to?” 

A long look. “Then I can’t stop you. But if you do, I can’t save you.”

Ross nods, steps forward. He’s drawn to the blond like a moth to a flame, like a meteor to a planet. Those blue eyes are the only thing moving as he approaches.

Then the angel puts a hand on Ross’ forearm, on the would-be armor which is nothing but printed fabric. “Who are you?” he asks in his turn.

All Ross sees is the stars glittering above the angel’s eyes.

The urge is bigger than both of them; it’s as vast as the open sky. 

He leans forward and kisses the angel’s shocked lips, smiling when they yield.

 

Approaching steps force them apart; both chests rise and fall fast with panic, with exhilaration from the touch of the other’s lips. Brown eyes piercing the blue, wanting more. But then -

“James!” A shrill voice. “James, where are you -”

The angel’s shoulders sag, and the spark in his eyes dims. The footsteps draw nearer, and he whispers, “I have to go, o’ fair explorer of the skies.”

“James! It’s time for the announcement!”

That sense of foreboding screams at Ross, the name - the name. The youngest son of his enemies has that name, could it be-

His eyes widen. More light trickles out of the azure blue, leaving it muted, sad.

“I didn’t even give you my name yet,” Ross says stubbornly; his best attribute and the worst, he’s told.

But the angel shakes his head, squares his shoulders and slips into the shadows. A moment later, the voice exclaims - “James, what are you doing out here in the dark? Your parents are waiting. And what’s this? Your hair’s a mess - such an important moment - It’s enough they let you wear this depressing getup- what are the guests going to think?”

 

The music fades as Ross walks back into the mansion, trailing after James and the woman who fetched him. He loses sight of them, but then a voice comes through the speakers, filling Ross' ears. His heart beats fast, his palms sweat; he needs to know if James is who Ross thinks, and yet he is dreading having his suspicion confirmed.

He listens, and as the voice continues, he pushes his way through the revelers in all their finery. With each step, with each word, he loses another tiny tangent of hope.

Was there ever really any, in this place? Being who he is, in this city divided, ruled by hate and last name and clans who have long forgone forgiveness, who had long forgotten who first offended and how - 

Sneaking in had been a mistake. 

But it’s too late to turn back now. In front of him - beauty and innocence, blue sparkling eyes and black wings, fallen angel on display. The enemy’s son, to be married in a week’s time to John Silver who stands there with a smug smile, twice the age of his would-be husband, rich, the so-called pirate of the seas, a man of ruthless reputation.

The smile is a stab through the heart.

The angel is lead into the middle of an empty dancing floor, his every resigned step a frantic thud of Ross’ heart. A dance unfolds, violin and cello, and Ross shoves his goggles up to his forehead again as his heart falls, cascading down the cliffs of sudden, jarring despair -

Across the dancefloor, the fallen angel’s eyes find his, and with every turn, they come back to rest on Ross’ face, again and again, until Ross’ head is spinning with it.

Behind him, a hiss. 

“What are you doing?” Demelza pushes up through the assembled crowd, bony unceremonious elbows heedless of attention. She reaches over to yank his goggles down again. “If we’re discovered-”

But it's too late. A cry rises right next to them. “A Poldark spawn in our midst!” It accuses. “Outrage!” another joins from the other side. 

“Go,” Ross shoves Demelza with both hands, sending her amethyst-green mermaid’s hair flying. “Run!”

She flees, slipping like a true fish through fingers while Ross is grabbed, pulled, glowered at, kicked.

The fallen angel pauses in his dance, his smug partner tugging at him. The blue eyes are sharp as daggers, mouth slack and open as Ross is forced out of the cavernous room.

 

It’s a lonely night in jail.

Trespassing is serious business; there’s only one side of the barrier you should be caught, and that’s yours.

Still, his parents pull some weight even with the neutral police department. So he is released when they pay the hefty fine in the morning, and he receives a stern warning - a repeated offense carries a much bigger penalty. As if he doesn’t know - the city’s distorted rules are the stuff of children’s bedtime stories here. 

Yet despite hearing them nightly from his fearmongering nanny, here he is: a fresh delinquent, going home behind the dark-tinted windows of his parents’ fortress of a car. Misunderstanding in their eyes - where did we go wrong - scolding. He lets it all fall out the other ear, numb. Six days till James' wedding. They’d disapproved of his feelings for Elizabeth; what would they say now?

The morning is crisp, bright, offering no comfort to a shocked heart.

In Ross’ mind it’s still night. Above the angel’s eyes, constellations converge. But he fears that their alignment brings no hope.

 

More lecturing when he’s out of costume, rested and showered. He sits through it unresponsive, gets a yelling for disrespect as a bonus. 

At first opportunity, he dials Demelza’s number, makes her drive him to the wall surrounding the wrong side of town. Scales it as she watches him with haunted eyes. She had succeeded in making him forget; too well. He makes her drive away.

Like a shadow through dusk he creeps along the stucco walls, not quite blending in with his dark hair. Just when he thinks himself lost in the maze of courtyards and buildings and hedges, he catches a glimpse of yellow hair through a lit window.

There he is. 

Ross’ heart nearly beats itself out of his chest. Jim looks ethereal, unreachable, and so lovely; Ross wishes to reach through the window pane and caress the cheek, taste the lips again. Lips promised to someone else in marriage.

Not that James hadn’t been forbidden to Ross since the day they each were born, their loyalties decided for them. 

He waits, dreams under a blooming wisteria, wishing and dreading at the same time that the blond angel would notice him.

He hears steps approaching the courtyard; in panic, he dives behind a hedge, knocks over a flower pot, and stifles a curse as the footsteps start running and searching around. In the dim light, they miss his dark hair, and he keeps his eyes closed until the two servants fix the pot and move off, ascribing the mishap to a roaming critter. Only when the footsteps retreat does Ross dare to open his eyes and looks up.

James is by the window, gazing steadily down. Straight at him.

 

“You shouldn’t be here,” the angel speaks. His eyes are not lined with stars anymore and his wings are gone when Ross wheels around in surprise; he looks somber, serious. Just himself. Beautiful, still.

“I had to come back.” The stubbornness returns, and Ross smiles. “I never introduced myself.”

“No need.” The voice sounds curt, like it’s trying to keep that barrier between them. “I know who you are now.”

Ross figured that might be the case. “I guess I should apologize for the commotion during your engagement dance.” His smile is gone, now.

The blue eyes darken; there’s annoyance in there, anger, or is it reluctance? “You made my parents fume. Him, too.” Something flashes in the deepening blue; rage, almost.

Ross knows who James means by ‘him’. “Are you really going to marry that guy?” His heart lurches in protest at the idea.

The blond looks away, down. His shoulders sag like yesterday in the darkness of the gardens.

“James?”

“It’s Jim,” comes the quiet voice.

“Huh?” Ross watches Jim trace a crack in the white stucco wall with his finger, wants to reach out and tuck away the lock of hair that obscures his face.

“Call me Jim.” He looks up. “My friends do.”

That makes Ross’ smile reappear. “Are we friends?”

“Not for long…”

Ross takes a step closer along the wall, puts his hand on it too. A foot of space between them, an invisible wall.

“Does it matter to you who I am?” Ross says.

Jim’s fingers quiver, restless. He takes them off, leans his shoulder and head against the cool, smooth surface. “Not to me. But if anyone finds you here-”

“I don’t care.” Ross takes one step more; the divide between them shrinks to six inches. He can almost feel Jim take a sharp breath. There’s tension in him, concern. 

“You already got caught once.”

“Then I better not get caught again,” Ross grins. He wants to erase the worry from Jim’s face. He reaches out, as if he could grasp it with his fingers and chuck it away. As if he could discard the reality that surrounds them. 

“Ross-” Jim groans. A protest, a plea. Ross’ hand hovers millimeters from Jim’s skin, and the blue eyes implore with him, equal shares scared and wanting. When Ross lays his hand on Jim’s cheek, the blue orbs disappear behind falling eyelids and Jim stops breathing altogether. 

Ross traces freckles instead of stars, and his knees are weak from the feel of warmth, of life, inside Jim. 

He’s defying fate right now, he’s defying the very order of his life, and he doesn’t give a damn about any of it. Jim sighs into his hand, and the barrier falls away when his smaller hand covers Ross’ and he says: “Not here.”

 

Jim keeps Ross’ hand in his, a cautionary finger of the other one over his lips. They flee through shadows of the estate, down to where rock meets sea in an ever turbulent love affair. A steep slope down to the shore, stone and grass, then sand. The moon hangs above, its glow spreading on the water. 

They sit, side by side, bare feet stuck in sand, shoulders touching. Enemies by name, they share words, silences, looks. The moon climbs through stars and clouds, cutting hours out of the night. The two figures lay down on their backs, staring up at it in challenge. And when Ross rises on his elbow, the stars are back in Jim’s face, reflecting in his eyes, making them luminous.

A hand draws Ross’ face down. 

They kiss until after the moon has passed its zenith; until the stars grow pale. 

“I have to go,” Jim whispers. “You have to go. This - this isn’t possible, we can’t-”

There are rough edges in his voice, as if the words are shards, cutting him from the inside. 

“I’ll come again tonight, just say the word,” Ross interrupts.

Jim bites his lip. “A month in prison, Ross, if they catch you.”

“What’s that compared to a lifetime with someone you don’t love?” Now he has sharp things clawing at his throat as well. 

Jim reaches into his shirt, pulls out a pendant on a long fine chain. He slides it over his head; it tangles. It’s a good excuse for Ross’ hands to linger in the soft hair again, under the pretense of helping.

Then the chain settles around his own neck, foreign, warm from Jim’s skin. The blond looks up at him. “Go now.”

Ross rises to his feet. The ache is starting already, deep down and coiling up. Jim stays on the ground, somber.

Then, just as Ross turns away, he says: “You know where my room is… After ten should be safe.”

Ross scales the wall again, walks home in the blinding rays of dawn. 

 

In his bed, he pulls out the chain, gazes at the pendant he’d felt dangling against his sternum. An angel’s wings.

He sleeps, clutching them in the palm of his hand.

 

He fakes a stomach ache, gets out of the day’s work. At dinner, another lecture. More concern than worry in his mother’s eyes; his father’s face still as hard as stone. If they discover him gone, he is courting danger.

He begs off to bed early, wards off Demelza’s calls, hoping she will forgive him. Summer dusk comes late and with it, he slips out of his parent’s house, out of the correct side of town, into the stucco walls of Jim’s home. 

Almost runs into a guard; it takes his heart the next ten minutes to settle down enough for him to move again. That same courtyard as last night, the same window. Dimmer, yet a shadow moves inside, peeks out - 

Jim throws the window open and Ross moves like a cat across the open space, lithe, fast, soundless. Up, climbing the vines, not trusting them overmuch - then the ledge, and as he pulls himself up, Jim grasps his wrist, elbow, shoulder. When Ross is in the room, both of their chests heave from the effort, from the audacity of their daring, from tempting fate and ruthless family lines. 

There’s a canopied bed across from the window; an expanse of dark ornate wallpaper, a piano. On top of it, the angel’s black wings. Bits of Jim everywhere - scattered over the floor, chairs, desk.

Jim pulls Ross deeper in, closes window, curtains, blinds, kills the light except for the smallest lamp by his bed. 

Ross’ pulse gallops like a frantic horse. He feels like Daniel in the lion’s den, like he’s dropped himself into a pit of snakes and Jim is his only way out. Yet at the same time, it’s a ridiculous notion, that just being who he is - something he never asked for, never could influence - makes him a mortal enemy on this very land. Who'd sewn the hate so deep? Not him, and not the blond standing in front of him.

The blue eyes are made of determination and fear, both likely mirroring Ross’.

“Five days, Ross,” Jim says. “Five nights and I’ll be someone else. In his house, in his bed. He’s going to-”

Jim’s voice fails, and the panic in the blue eyes is unbearable. Ross steps forward to quell it. Wraps his arms around the shorter blond to absorb as much of the pain as he can. 

“I love you,” he whispers into the soft locks.

“I want you to be the first,” Jim whispers back, his tone resolute, though there’s a tiny quake underneath it. “Please.”

 

Another night and no sleep. Before dawn, they lie in the middle of the sheets, minds drifting. Jim's voice had long since stopped shaking from panic, though there were times when it trembled for other reasons.

Ross has those moments burnt into his memory: the sweat running down Jim’s throat, the catch in his voice, the way his body responded to anything and everything they did to each other. The angel - undone and for a moment, free to fly.

The sheets are rumpled around them, a blanket covering them up to their waist as Jim lies with his head on Ross’ shoulder, tracing ribs and muscles and the sharp V of Ross’ jaw. 

“Run away with me,” Ross whispers.

Jim doesn’t reply for a while, though the fingers pause.

“I-”

“Or come to my parents' house. I will make them see reason, explain -”

“They’d never accept me,” Jim says. “Even if they’d let me stay, there’d be an outcry, a conflict- and Silver-”

“So you’ll just stay trapped? You’ll just let this happen to the rest of your life?” Ross doesn’t want to sound angry and desperate, but he is, he wants to shake Jim, instill fight in him. 

Jim looks up. “What do you expect me to do? I don’t have a choice. If I run, they will find us. It won’t end well.”

They lie in silence, both knowing it’s likely true. But Ross is as stubborn as the ragged cliffs, as the sea.

“Run away with me,” he repeats. “Marry me.”

Jim stares at him, fear and awe glazing his eyes. 

“I can’t,” he whispers.

To think that he imagined himself in love with Elizabeth... Ross closes his eyes, wondering how a single person is supposed to bear such despair.

He hears that same despair in Jim’s voice when the blond shifts and speaks right over Ross' heart.

“I love you." A hitch, a touch of lips to skin. "Thank you.”

Ross tightens his arms around him, and the pain he can’t contain makes salty paths down and over his cheeks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> End of part one... Part two coming soon :)
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	2. A Consequence Yet Hanging In The Stars

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks everyone for the kudos, and especially for the AMAZING comments. I've been basically obsessed with this story for the past week, it wouldn't leave my mind... so I hope the result is worth it. 
> 
> Title of the chapter is yet again a line from the play.

Ross dresses, Jim watching him through a sliver between eyelids, subdued.

“What now?” says Ross. He already misses Jim’s skin, wants nothing more than to take three steps and cover it with roaming touch again.

“We return,” Jim murmurs. “Each to his side.”

Ross’ cheeks are stiff from dried tears. “I don’t want to leave you here. To him. I’ll come back.”

“You’re courting danger. I can’t let you, Ross,” Jim says. He closes his eyes, drops back onto the crumpled sheets. “There’s nothing to gain from you going to jail, or worse.”

Ross puts on his shirt, each button he fastens like a step closer to a lifetime of regret. It can’t be what they exist for?

“There’s everything to gain,” he insists, his heart catching fire again. Jim might not heed him, but he can still hear even in the grips of apathy. He thinks furiously, doggedly, mind leaping over barriers of brick and old hate; to him, they are crumbling clay, vapor over grass that the force of his will alone can disperse.

“Meet me tomorrow at the city hall. At noon. I’ll bring rings.”

Jim’s eyes fly open, blue speckled with that same awe as before. His voice implores, gravelly. “Ross - they’ll never marry us. As soon as they hear our last names, they’ll refuse.”

“There’s no law that forbids it.”

“There doesn’t need to be.” Jim sighs. “I want to, God, I do.”

“Then come.” Ross lays a hand on Jim’s arm; angled as it is it resembles a broken wing. “Just say yes.”

Jim half rises off the bed, curls up to Ross. “I - I can’t promise it.”

“I know.” It’s not the answer he craves, but Ross forces his stubbornness to the backseat. He caresses the sharp angle of Jim’s elbow, takes a kiss from Jim’s parted lips. “I’ll be there anyway.”

Jim buries his hand in Ross’ dark curls and kisses back like the act itself might wash the black off his wings. “I wish I had your courage.”

“Then take all of mine.”

Back out through the window, down the wall and into the pink glow that lines the horizon, and he thinks that the smooth glide of Jim’s fingers across his scalp is a feeling worth dying for.

 

 

He’s drowsy again at breakfast. Suspicion hovers over the long white table laid out with fruit and eggs and crepes and everything else that he doesn’t want to touch. Lady Poldark insists he sees the family doctor for such lingering malaise. He shrugs, knowing he can only abuse this card for so long; he evades promises, father’s displeased stare.

Busy rulers of a mining empire that they are, they soon go the ways of their crammed schedules, mother to turn the wheels of her charity ventures on her side of the barrier, father to preside over his ore-digging from behind a flickering screen.

A life that’s drafted for him to slide into, along with whoever they, one day, choose for him to wed.

Left alone, he goes on a hunt - for a pair of rings, his documents, for the courage to grab a life of his own. Sneaks food when no one’s looking. His nerves are a jittery mess; part of him scant believing what he is about to do, part of him exultant, determined, defiant. Now and then the courage he offered so freely to Jim wavers, but it takes just one brush of the silver wings pendant against the skin of his chest to restore it, to bring forth flutters and certainty and love.

The memory of Jim arching against him off the bed, the many ways he whispered ‘please’. It’s enough to make Ross’ heart fortify itself and keep going.

Five missed calls from Demelza. He returns the sixth and she comes not ten minutes later, wary and troubled. Gets in the car with him, eyeing the envelope he carries and asking nothing.

He holds open for her the doors to the hushed city hall, and asks to be seen; his name seems enough to take him in without appointment. Demelza follows, confused, then understanding dawns -

“Ross, you can’t be serious!” she implores.

He smiles, darkly. “You wanted me to forget Elizabeth, didn’t you?”

“I never meant -” she starts, her face a mask of pale horror.

She agrees to witness in the end.

The clerk, a thin graying man, grasps then that the ceremony at hand won’t be a run-of-the-mill union. He looks as if he wished retirement had come early at the sight of Ross’ fierce eyebrows and Demelza’s stupor.

Though the plan might not even come to fruition. It hinges on Jim, and Jim might not come.

But if he does -

If.

In the pocket of Ross’ shirt, the rings weigh a more than a trainload of copper, measured in fear and guilt.

 

 

Ten minutes to twelve. Five. Two. Ross is still as marble, but his heart hammers against the anvil of his chest, louder with each breath. Demelza puts her face in her hands, runs trembling fingers through her hair. “Ross-”

“Wait.”

The bell in the tower above them starts tolling. With each clang, some of Ross’ optimism turns to dust; he clenches his fists.

“Mr. Poldark,” the man says, a feeble attempt at aborting whatever this madness is.

Ross shakes his head. “No. Give him time.”

The last toll echoes away through the streets. The sound lingers in Ross’ mind as defeat toes its way in. He frowns harder, defying it.

A sound of an engine’s roar under the window. Ross’ hope surges and spikes, irrational, grasping on straws -

The angel bursts through the door not two minutes later, breathless, cheeks flushed from the wind, gorgeous. Ross’ heart leaps over the abyss of despair and lands on the other side just as Jim gives him a brittle smile.

“Ross, I tried-”

“You’re here,” Ross exhales.

The clerk blanches when Jim presents his birth certificate. He stares at it mutely, then at them.

Blue and hazel stare back, made of resolve.

“You need a second witness.”

A technicality. “Bring your secretary,” Ross retorts.

“This is insane,” the clerk says, glaring at them bemused, speculative, reluctant. Then, either finding his own spine or reaching the point of resignation, he goes to the door.

“I hope he’ll hurry,” Jim whispers. “The security detail always follows me, I usually manage to shake them off when I’m out for a ride, but I didn’t have time to hide the bike.”

Ross weaves his fingers through his. “What changed your mind?”

A dark something flickers across Jim’s eyes. “After.”

A vow, a kiss, simple rings sliding over knuckles.

Demelza’s hand shakes when she signs her name under Ross’ new one. Hawkins-Poldark. She sighs, hugs him and after a brief hesitation, Jim as well. The secretary looks terrified at the proceedings, the clerk cryptic as he wipes his forehead with a handkerchief. “This will come to grief,” he says, as if he’s a prophet on the side. A copy of the license goes to each of the newly married couple: a sheet of paper strewn with words that are both gold and dynamite.

Out in the hallway, behind a statue of a long-dead poet, they kiss for real.

“I’m going to run away with you,” Jim whispers into Ross’ mouth, mid-kiss.

“When?” Ross pulls back to stare at him, urgent. Why can wait.

“Tonight.” Jim says. “He’ll be over for dinner-” that dark glint again - “and when he leaves, I’ll disappear.”

Ross squeezes his hips. “Just say where we’ll meet.”

Jim kisses him again. Holds Ross’ face in the palms of his hands. “I can’t believe we did it. But you were right. I can’t live the rest of my life with him, I’d rather die.” A bitter note staining Jim’s voice. A rivulet of cold runs down Ross’ spine.

“What happened?” he ventures.

“Silver came by this morning," Jim meets his eyes, briefly. “Surprised me in my room. Must have convinced my parents it was okay - we’re engaged, after all. I was still sleeping when he came in-”

A pause and a shudder. Ross’s heart flips and lurches, a tight fist holding it hostage.

“I woke up with him touching me. I thought-” Jim bites his lip. “I thought it was you... I might have said something, your name - he looked suspicious for a moment.”

Ross swallows, soothes with his fingers even as his own anger brews.

“I hope I didn’t give us away.” Jim’s touch is almost frantic on Ross’ skin. “When I realized it wasn’t you, I pushed him away, and he… The things he said that he’d do to me - I can’t bear it, Ross. Before you, I imagined I could, but I can’t.”

A moment, to push down the overflow of hate, of rage. Gentle, now. “You won’t have to bear it. You married me.”

“And you’ll leave everything behind? Family, friends, the mines -” A note of doubt in Jim’s voice.

Ross smiles, grim. “My parents might be letting me live out my ‘stormy’ years, but that doesn’t mean that my life isn’t planned out just like yours. Whatever freedom I have, it’s not going to last much longer. There’s a mining empire to perpetuate.”

Jim nods. “And you’re the heir to it.”

“To a part of it, yes. But I’d rather start somewhere on my own.” And it’s true; even if he does love the mining itself and the solid ground of his home.

Jim nods. “So would I.”

“Then we do it. We leave, and make our lives somewhere else, far. Or at least we get you out, away from him.”

“No. We go together,” Jim murmurs. “Together, or not at all.”

One more kiss. One more look of forget-me-not blue, and then Jim goes. Ross watches from the window, and when he sees Jim through the glass on the cobbles of the street below, he wonders if their plan has a chance to succeed, to stay hidden until it can. They’ve played with fire for days. Now they are holding enough dynamite to blow up the entire city.

A glint of metal on Jim’s left hand, reflecting in the midday sun. The angel looks up, a last silent reaffirmation.

Demelza puts a hand on Ross’ shoulder. “I get it, Ross, I really do, but-”

“But?”

“It’s insanity. If your father finds out, he will kill you…”

That might well be true.

“It will break your mother’s heart,” she continues.

“Am I forever beholden to do their bidding?” Ross turns from the image of Jim sitting on his bike, starting his engine. “Is it forever my duty to prolong this hate? I can’t do it, Demelza. I made my choice.” He searches her gaze and she lowers her eyes, nods.

When he turns back to the street, Jim is just a small figure moving away on wheels of chrome, disappearing around the corner.

 

 

The afternoon: agony.

Not giving away how much a short ceremony has changed him, ignoring the fact that everything and everyone he sees might well be in his life for the last time. It’s a harder business than he thought. Yet surprisingly easy: he finds there is hardly anything he wants to take with. The ring is on his hand, the proof of his marriage folded inside his shirt. A few things, haphazardly thrown into a bag.

Waiting.

 

 

Dinner with parents. A large table set for three, a display of luxury he’s about to give up. Mother chitters about a gala function in the making, father grunting agreement to mint-green tablecloths, pink lilies, the choice of chardonnay over champagne. She turns to Ross suddenly.

“Lady Trauvenance was there; asked me when we’ll be announcing your nuptials, dearest,” she chirps, her tone light, teasing.

Ross mouth goes dry. “I - I haven’t given it any thought,” he looks at both his parents. “Have you? I don’t think I’m quite ready...”

The pretense hangs heavy over him, the ring tugging at his conscience. But they don’t notice.

“I was already married at your age,” his father replies, brusque and dismissive. “And I was happy enough. It is better than this brooding and restlessness you seem to be absorbed in these days.”

“The Trauvenance heir is getting married soon. So is your cousin.” A pregnant pause. “Even the Hawkins youngest has just gotten engaged,” his mother adds.

Gossip, apparently, heeds no divides.

His shock at Lady Poldark’s mention of Jim almost gives Ross away, but his father hits the table with his fist at that, startling them both. “Do not speak that family name in this house, Grace.”

She gives him a mild look, then turns to Ross with a conspirator’s smile. “Do not worry, dear. You will be ready soon. I have already cast my eyes out for a suitable match for you, and I have nothing but your happiness on my mind.”

Food goes tasteless in his mouth. He forces it down his throat, barely managing to nod.

He bids them good night - a good bye in disguise.

The night air welcomes him with open arms when the lights in the mansion go out.

 

 

The car idles, parked in the shadows at the agreed spot.

Ross goes over Jim’s words again and again. The place, the time. All is right.

It’s only a half hour past their rendez-vous, Ross tells himself. Jim said to wait one; if he doesn’t show, something has prevented him.

He waits an hour and a half. Still no sign of the fallen angel. The corner from which he should emerge remains empty, and scenarios begin to play out in Ross’ mind until he’s mad with worry. Silver invading Jim’s room again. The escape plan discovered, Jim caught slipping out, kept under lock and guard -

He drives to the wall, parks a block from it, steals into the darkness and hoists himself up.

Over-eager, he lands too hard; the sound carries in the quiet of the night. A light comes on in a window. Ross scrambles to the side, thinks he made it unseen.

The courtyards are starting to feel familiar. He’s just about to enter Jim’s when hands grab him from behind, shove him face first into the nearest stucco wall, imprison his hands.

“Who do we have here?” a low voice hisses in his ear.

“A sneaking Poldark rat,” the second guard spits, shining a flashlight into his face.

He struggles, to no avail.

“You’ll regret sticking your dirty miner’s nose where you don’t belong,” the first one promises with twisted pleasure.

Ross doubts it. He might regret this consequence. But not the reason, never the reason. He sneers at them.

The guard grabs him by the hair, yanking his head back only to ram it into the wall. Dizzying pain turns Ross confused; he thinks of Jim, so close, of worried Demelza. Then his knees give out and he slumps to the ground.

His forehead throbs when he wakes, already in a cell at the police department downtown. On the other side of the bars, his parents. While Ross still tests his senses and tries to sit upright, their faces convey all that he expects: anxiety, disappointment, anger, incomprehension.

A hearing tomorrow, court in two days. Jail till then. Swift justice is key, discouraging transgressions the strategy. He expects to be in prison before Jim’s supposed wedding.

Later, Demelza, reaching through the gaps for him. They don’t speak for fear of saying too much. Her cheeks are dripping wet with guilt, with helplessness.

“Is there anything I can do?” she says finally, eyeing the sizeable bruise under his hairline.

Ross swallows around the lump in his throat, shakes his head.

He wonders when Jim will find out.

The day drags, the night even more. Ross lies prone on the hard bench, painting constellations of freckles on the ceiling of the holding area. His cell mates, one drunk and the other occasionally screaming obscenities at the cops, are poor company. Not that he seeks any. All he wants are blue eyes above him, blond hair that curtains his face, Jim’s voice, hope.

It’s scant right now. All he has are memories. They are so near, so loud in his mind that they threaten to choke him: skin, breath, lips to a pale thigh, Jim’s strangled moans, touches so intimate. A whispered ‘Are you okay’; Jim’s exhaled ‘Yes - ahh, Ross - deeper’ in answer. Heat and pleasure, so much pleasure.

It burns.

In the morning, his parents are back. Ross has made it on the city news. Shame on the house of Poldark, his father says, you bring shame on us, son. What were you doing there? What were you thinking?

“I had to…” He looks away. “See someone.”

If he’s made it on the news, Jim surely knows by now. Ross has backed the fallen angel into a new corner, just as impossible as the other.

“You are mad,” his father says, condemnation in his tone. “I brought you up better than this, than to have a dalliance with the enemy.”

“I don’t have an enemy,” Ross says.

He does; but it’s not who his father means.

 

The torture of inaction, of immobility, continues. The hearing’s result was predictable, offered no hope. No bail. Night descends outside from what he can see.

Ross doesn’t care about the month in prison he’s likely to get. He doesn’t care about the public trial tomorrow. He cares that while he’s in, Jim will have to face this alone. They said together, but that’s hard when one of them has been served a check-mate. Will Jim run away alone? Announce he’s married to a Poldark and ride out the fury? Conceal the ring and the marriage contract and obey his parents until Ross is out? It would mean Silver...

I’d rather die, Jim had said.

Together or not at all.

Ross’ insides tighten.

 

Near dawn, his eyes finally fall, his mind shutting down for a spell. In a dream, Ross sees Jim with his wings, black tears gathering in his eyes, a hard-faced man’s hand on his shoulder. He wakes, gasping for breath, chasing the vision away.

The bruise on his forehead is tender when he touches it with cold fingers. He wonders what Jim is doing. He wants to see him smile, kiss him, promise there is a plan B. He can’t think of one, none that he can carry out from where he is.

Will the Hawkinses be there for the trial, to gloat over his capture, over their enemies’ shame of a son? Will Jim be there as well? Silver?

Lord and Lady Poldark come to accompany him, bringing the family attorney and a fresh pressed clothes. His mother sobs at the sight of him, father radiates distaste and disapproval. The police are impassive. One of them takes Ross’ arm to lead him out; at least his family name means he goes without handcuffs.

Sunlight dazzles him after hours in the station’s dim interior. Down the steps, police car waiting, his parents walking to their suv to follow the disgraceful procession. Ross feels disconnected, untouched by the events, only one person on his mind.

Then a car screeches to a halt across the street and out rushes a thin orange-haired girl, wailing. “Ross! Ross! Please let him go! It’s all my fault -”

The policeman escorting Ross bars her way before she can throw herself at the prisoner. Demelza comes to a gasping halt a few steps from them, her eyes rolling into her head, and she faints.

They rush to her, but as Ross bends over her in shock and worry, there’s an urgent tug on his sleeve from behind. He turns. A hand presses over his mouth before he can cry out in pure astonishment at the flicker of blue eyes he sees, at the blond lock escaping from a messy bun. Jim gestures and pulls and Ross stumbles to follow, breathless, wide-eyed. Questions roar in his head - how - what -

The answer is a motorcycle, parked between two cars.

Shouts flare up behind them, scrambling steps, a woman’s scream. Jim throws him a helmet when they skid to a halt at the curb. “We need to get out of here. My parents are at the courthouse but I think Silver followed me - I think he suspects -”

On the other side of the street, a golden sports car slows down next to Demelza’s vehicle.

“Shit, that’s him,” Jim curses, already straddling the bike. “I was hoping I just imagined it. Persistent bastard.”

The engine erupts with life, a deep purr of suppressed power. Ross throws a leg over the leather seat. He wraps his arms around Jim and presses himself against his back. Something hard dig against his stomach. That would give him pause, but there’s no time to wonder or ask Jim; their window of opportunity is small and unforgiving.

To their right, Silver glares at them with a murderous frown, then starts turning his car around. A second warning from the cop. Stop or we shoot.

Jim pulls out into the road. A gunshot rings out. Then two more.

 

 

Something hits Ross below the right shoulder. The impact pushes him into Jim; as he corrects himself, he feels warmth trickle down his back. Then the pain hits him.

The motorcycle accelerates with a vengeance, leaving behind a tire print burnt into the asphalt, speckled with drops of Ross’ blood.

 

 

“Hang on,” Jim shouts at him. He takes the first street to the right, navigating with skill. A stopped truck slows them down, cars and people bar their way. Jim’s frustration comes out in a growl, then he slips through an opening and they are off again, air whipping their faces.

Ross turns around, and the wound screams at him. Sirens blare in the distance. Three cars down, he spots a glint of gold on a car’s hood.

“He’s following us,” Ross rasps.

Jim’s jaw is set so hard, Ross is afraid it might snap.

 

 

Five blocks; Ross clutches Jim, gritting his teeth against the searing pain. He peeks down his front but there’s no exit wound - the bullet must have gotten lodged somewhere.

It seems the sirens come from all directions now. And they can’t shake off Silver; like a persistent leech, he is attached to them, always a few steps behind. Ross sees the flicker of Jim’s blue eyes in the bike’s rear view mirrors. His angel, fierce.

 

 

Two more blocks. A police car almost cuts them off but Jim brakes then draws an arc around it and rockets forward, his whole body tensing against Ross’ chest. Ross’ heart flutters and pumps harder. The angel is full of surprises; he rides like the devil.

Ahead, the interstate ramps. Perhaps there, they could get a head start.

Warm blood soaks through Ross’ shirt, running down his back and not stopping. The pain makes him dizzy. He wants to tell Jim, but so much hinges on his concentration -

Silver is so close that when Ross throws another quick glance behind, he can see the angry curl of the man’s lip, the vice-like grip of his hands on the wheel. There must be a way to shake him off.

 _Go, Jim,_ he urges the blond in his mind. _Fly._

Jim passes the ramp leading onto the interstate, then, without warning, turns the bike against the oncoming traffic of the exit ramp. He goes up, wheels eating up the white margin line.

 

 

Ross’ heart jumps into his throat. Not just a devil, then. A daredevil and angel in one.

It makes him grunt in pain, but he still swerves to see if they’ve shaken off pursuit.

At the bottom of the ramp, a police car stops hard, unable to follow. Silver passes the ramp, already going into another turn. But either he misjudges or loses control, or maybe he sees his doom and tries to evade -

Ross’ eyes widen in shock when an emerald green recycling truck speeds into sight and meets shining gold, ploughs into it. To the soundtrack of squealing brakes and protesting metal, the sports car gets pushed some distance, then the concrete column supporting the interstate squeezes Silver’s car from the other side with a resounding crash.

A ball of flames uncurls itself from the wreckage.

Ross wrenches his gaze away, facing the confusion they are causing on the highway. “Jim -”

The blond doesn’t seem to hear, all his focus ahead.

The pain threatens to overcome Ross, making his chest tight and hard to expand. He looks behind again: no one’s chasing them, though the sound of sirens lingers in the vicinity.

He holds on for another mile or two. Jim swerves to evade a shredded tire in their way, making drivers honk in alarm at them. Yet as long as the motorcycle stays on the sideline, they seem safe enough. They just need to keep going, keep adding distance between them and the city.

Faintness creeps up. “Jim, I’m-” he tries again. “Oh, fuck.” Not now-

Nausea rises up his throat. Only when his hold around Jim’s torso loosens does the blond realize something’s wrong. He brakes, firm, urgent. Grass under them. Ross falls forward into him, that hard object digging into his stomach again, and then he tips back and off.

“Ross?!? Shit!”

A rough stop, rough almost as Ross’ landing. When Ross opens bleary eyes, a blond curl hangs an inch from his face, and the blue is stricken with panic again.

“Ross! What’s the matter? Shit, I’m sorry if I went too fast-”

A hand goes under his back to support him and comes away smeared with red. “Ross! You’re bleeding!”

“Got shot - a little.”

Jim pales, curses. Strips his shirt off and presses it to the wound. Ross moans, amazed to be awake, but the fall has thrown him into strange state of alertness, and he feels every bone, every nerve. Too much.

Sirens, closer. Jim doesn’t move.

“I think Silver’s dead,” Ross says hoarsely. “Saw his car get hit - go up in flames -”

Angel’s wide blue eyes, freckles. Fingers on Ross’ temple. “Hold on, I’ll find help.”

“You should get away. The police will be here.” He attempts to push Jim towards his bike.

“Don’t move! - I’m not leaving you. Oh Ross, I’m sorry, it’s my fault -”

“No.” Enough breath for a few more words. “None of it is.”

The sirens are almost upon them.

 

 

Three police cars arrive at the same time, uniforms jumping out.

“He’s hurt!” Jim shouts. “Call an ambulance!”

Muffled words into a radio. The faint feeling steals over Ross once more. No one moves, then a gun comes out, a click of safety.

“Step away from him and put your hands in the air,” an officer orders Jim.

The angel’s small hand, faster than lightning, goes to the back of his belt. It brings out a knife, presses it against his own chest, between two ribs right over the heart. “No. I’m not leaving him.”

 

 

Shocked silence.

Ross’ mind scrambles to catch up. A knife?

Jim came armed with more than courage and desperation.

Ross wants to stop the world, tear it apart, at the sight of Jim like this.

It was not supposed to turn out like this.

 

 

Through the growing pile of stalled vehicles, people come running up.

“Stay behind the police cars,” one of the cops warns.

“That’s my son!” Lady Poldark exclaims, choked up. “He’s - is he injured? Is that -”

“An ambulance is on the way,” another officer informs her. “As soon as they surrender-”

“What is the meaning of this?” Her husband’s deep voice joins the scene. “Ross, what the hell were you thinking, running from the police? Are you mad?”

“James?” another woman, sounding frantic, unfamiliar. “Oh my god, James, what are you doing? What’s going on, officer? Why are you pointing a gun at my son?”

“He’s under arrest for helping Ross Poldark escape,” an officer replies.

“Ross P-” An unfamiliar male voice, outraged. “James! Step away from that piece of Poldark scum!” Lord Hawkins, then.

“Careful, father, how you speak of my husband.” Jim, full of dangerous resolve.

Gasps. “That’s not possible,” Lord Hawkins demands. “You are to marry Silver.”

“Silver’s car exploded,” Jim retorts. “And even if he isn't dead, I can’t marry him. I’m married to Ross.” He reaches around to his back again, tosses a white envelope towards them. “See for yourselves.”

Ross watches from Jim’s lap as Lady Hawkins picks it up, unfolding a piece of paper from within. “It’s true,” she says, her voice cracking. “Oh Jim…”

“Ross, how? Why?” Lady Poldark, bewildered. A rustling of passed-around paper, gasps.

Jim’s fingers are shaking on the knife’s handle, his other hand carding through Ross’ hair once more. A feeling worth dying for, yes, but now that it actually might come true, it feels wrong, so wrong. So much life in Jim - in his own body - despite the pain. He doesn’t want to die.

Outraged, Lord Poldark starts forward. “Such dishonor! I’m going to strangle you, Ross, and the Hawkins boy as well-”

Jim tightens his hold, savage eyes set on the advancing man. “Try it.”

“No!” Jim’s mother blocks her enemy’s way. “Enough, they are our children!”

“Shameful, disobedient brats they are! Conspiring behind our backs!” Lord Hawkins adds his voice to his foe’s.

“Would you rather see them dead?” Jim’s mother turns on him as well. ”One is already hurt, need more blood be spilled?” Ross’ mother jolts at the unexpected display of empathy.

In the distance, a new siren, different.

“Stay with me, Ross,” Jim whispers.

It had been foolish to think this could end well. Every second, they are in more trouble with the law; Jim was supposed to be free, not thrown in prison as well. He’s rid of Silver, at least, and that has to count for something. Still… they’ve failed.

Ross gulps. His voice quivers, breaths come shallow. “Jim, this was not - not what I wanted. Go, I don’t want them to hurt you.”

“No.” Jim’s voice is rough with tears. “We make it out together, or not at all. Just hold on.”

 

An impasse; lives hanging in balance. Old hatred with fresh fuel on one side; on the other side - a sudden, searing love. It feels as if one gust of breeze might tip the scales either way.

Blood loss drains strength from Ross; his hands feel clammy and cold. Jim implores with him, tears like crystal droplets falling. “Ross, please... They’re almost here, they must be...”

Ross tries. But as darkness creeps up from the edges of his vision, he thinks he can hear the beating of an angel’s wings in his ears.

The wailing of a siren comes closer, shuts off. The knife falls away as Jim picks Ross up, more strength in his arms than Ross imagined. He groans; a soothing tone from Jim. “Easy, now.”

“Put him down!” The police. “Set him down before we fire!”

“Then fire.” Jim walks, steadily, towards the guns, their parents, the ambulance doctors who rush to meet him. “Go ahead, shoot me. I’m not letting him go.”

A woman sobs. Ross’ mother? Jim’s? Does it matter? Ross thinks, at a moment of absolute despair, all mothers must sound the same.

The voices bleed together in his ears. He stays tethered to Jim’s warmth, but then there are other hands, faces coming between, shouts-

A pandemonium.

Then the calm of feeling nothing.

 

 

He wakes up. A white ceiling, a steady beep somewhere behind his head. The warmth of hands wrapped around his wrist. Carefully, he turns his head towards its source and Jim’s face swims into view, framed by the beige walls of a hospital room.

The angel’s lips part, and he smiles. “Hey there.”

“You’re still with me,” Ross breathes. There’s a world of pain somewhere in the background, pushed back with meds so his body can heal and rest. But he needs to know what happened. “Jim -”

Jim’s hold tightens. “I’m here. I told you we’d make it out.” He looks up past him and when Ross follows his gaze, there are the Hawkinses standing there, looking shocked, shaken. Next to them, Lord and Lady Poldark. Ross’ father looks gray and five years older than this morning, his mother like she’s gazed into hell from its very edge.

On a chair in the corner, like a pale bright-eyed ghost, Demelza.

The blond tucks away a lock of Ross’ hair. “The police dropped all the charges, in exchange for a promise of peace between the families. We’re going to be alright,” he says.

“Jim…” His heart flutters, relief knocking out every other emotion. But he remembers: the chase, the standoff, Jim’s bravery. “I offered you my courage. You were not supposed to take my stubbornness as well…”

A tired smile. “Plenty more left where it came from, I imagine.”

“Maybe.” The few words have exhausted Ross, and his eyes go heavy again. “Can you handle that?”

“I can handle it just fine,” Jim assures him, kisses his forehead. “As long as you promise not to get shot again."

Ross chuckles, regretting it instantly when pain flares nearer to surface. "I'll try."

Jim frowns at his wince. "Sleep now.”

He puts a hand on Ross’ chest, over the pendant on a chain. Ross covers the hand with his and drifts off again.

 

Outside, the dawn breaks. The city rises to a new day, to the news of a hyphen between two names that for decades were only connected by hate.

It’s time now for peace to have a turn.

 

By the time summer shifts towards its very end, a lot of walls have already come down. The physical ones are crushed easily. The mental ones have deeper roots; they follow at a slower pace.

The day is warm and clear, heading towards evening. Behind Jim on the motorcycle, Ross can feel every shift of muscle in Jim’s sides and back as he holds on. Yellow curls from under Jim’s helmet flutter in his face. The sun is low, a spilled bucket of red-orange on the inside of his eyelids.

They cruise along the coast, last ride before leaving tomorrow to start somewhere on their own. Not exactly running away anymore. Just finding themselves, giving themselves a chance to grow away from their old lives. There’s been some resistance to the idea - old hatred dies hard, parents’ expectations don’t fade overnight, but they persevered.

Jim slows down. They pull over, walk towards the cliffs, sea air in their nostrils. The wound on Ross’ shoulder aches if he moves too fast, but they don’t go far before sitting down on the rocks; Ross puts his chin on Jim’s shoulder.

“You were wrong, you know,” he remarks quietly.

A flicker of startled blue. Ross cracks a smile, hand tracing the soft skin on the back of Jim’s neck. “In the garden, that first night. You said you couldn’t save me. But you did.”

Jim huffs. “Idiot.” It’s nothing but gentle, brimming with affection. He leans in, puts an arm around Ross. “It was the other way around.”

Ross inhales the salty breeze in Jim’s hair. “Not an idiot. Your husband.” Looks like there’s stubbornness left in him after all.

The angel smiles at him; out of the corner of his mouth, out of the corner of his eyes, and with the whole of his soul.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again for reading :))


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